“How Music Can Benefit Seniors” plus 1 more

Listening to or playing music is fun and enjoyable, but music offers many more benefits than its entertainment value alone. These benefits are particularly helpful to seniors. Whether seniors are living in home care, a professional nursing home, or another type of caregiving facility, music can make a difference in their quality of life. 

Provide Holistic Care

Music can be an important element of holistic nursing and caregiving. Facilities that take a holistic approach focus on the patient as a whole person and emphasize the patient’s ability to help heal themselves. Holistic care often incorporates empathetic listening and aromatics, and music therapy can enhance this holistic approach. 

Music therapy focuses on treating patients through the power of music. It’s often used to help people with autism since it can stimulate both hemispheres of the brain and supports overall cognitive function, and this can help seniors keep their minds active in the same way. Music also gives people a way to communicate without words, which can be particularly helpful for seniors who can no longer speak. Even in homecare settings, caregivers can hire music therapists to come into the home to work with a senior.  

Help Seniors Work Through Past Trauma

Seniors who have experienced past trauma can also benefit from music and music therapy. Nursing home abuse is a serious and widespread issue today, and music therapy can support seniors who have undergone trauma in a previous nursing home or another environment. 

Music therapy can help seniors to process and heal from the trauma that they’ve experienced. Often, people who have experienced trauma have emotions that they can’t easily access or express, but music therapy can help with that expression. Trained music therapists can use music to help with relaxation, or they may encourage a senior to create music, interpret and assign emotions to music, or use music in another way that helps them to process their past trauma. 

Dealing with trauma isn’t a step-by-step process, either. A senior may have sudden reactions and memories because of the trauma, and this requires that the therapy change and adapt, too. Music therapy can be easily adjusted to provide what the senior needs at that very moment, and it can also be paired with other more traditional therapy forms, like counseling. 

Support Mental Health and Memory

Music can also play an important role in mental health. Music can have a direct effect on a senior’s mood, so nursing homes and healthcare settings can use that to their advantage by playing upbeat, happy, or soothing music to help residents stay relaxed and content. Before a doctor’s appointment or another stressful event, having a senior listen to a soundtrack of songs that they enjoy could help to relax them and may even help them be more cooperative.

Music also affects cognitive function, which is particularly important in seniors. A study performed in Spain analyzed cognitive function in adults age 59 and up. The study compared the cognitive function of adults who were involved with music during their lives to the function in adults who received musical training when they were older. The study found that those participants who engaged in music during their lives had improved cognitive function, including reasoning, their attention, and the speed at which they were able to process information. 

But the study also found that the participants who received musical training late in their adulthood showed similar cognitive improvements and benefits. This indicates that it’s never too late to learn to play an instrument or sing and suggests that nursing home residents might enjoy improved cognitive function if allowed to participate in regular music lessons and groups. 

Help Seniors Stay Engauged

When facilities embrace and use music to help seniors, it creates a valuable way for seniors to get involved. Music lessons and music groups create important social opportunities for seniors, and they’re very hands-on activities. These sessions can give seniors something to look forward to and work toward. When seniors learn music, they have the opportunity to meet other people with similar interests. If seniors have always had a goal to play an instrument, getting the chance to finally learn that instrument can make for a meaningful and rewarding experience. 

Music is also accessible. Age and physical restrictions aren’t barriers to music, meaning that any senior can learn an instrument or learn to sing if they’d like to. This can create a sense of unity and build relationships between seniors, especially when they’re enjoying the experience of playing music together. In a home care setting, music lessons can give a senior a reason to leave the home and interact with others. 

Creating a music group in a facility can foster senior engagement, which in turn promotes dignity among residents. Allowing a resident with past musical training to lead the group can be a great way to honor that resident’s skills and knowledge. Seniors who learn to play music will be able to see their improvement and can feel a sense of accomplishment, too.  

There are many ways that seniors can benefit from music, and because music is accessible, it’s easy to implement in professional care settings, home care settings, and more. 

 

 

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Heading into a new year (or new quarter, season, headspace; depending on when you read this), many a thought turns to “I’m going to start getting paid my worth” and “I’m not working for no or low payment anymore!” The artists I work with often ask me how to decide if an opportunity is paying them enough - and I also think about this myself when asked to take on new projects. While I used to think payment had to be monetary, I’ve been thinking differently of late and I’d like to share what I use as a rubric of sorts to before taking on a gig, task, project

I got this idea from a Facebook comment I read a couple of years ago. The commenter said that they heard that (insert well-known artist name) uses a “4 Fs” guide, and if the gig offers 2 of the 4 Fs, they accept the gig. I don’t want to mention the artist as when I went to Mr. Google to check if this story was online anywhere, or if the method itself could be found as a mention in a story, I found nothing. (If you have seen a similar story published though, please do share.) So, I don’t want to tag onto a known artist without knowing if it really came from them. That aside, I took the 4 Fs and made my own “7 Fs rubric” for when I decide: take the gig or not?

The 7 Fs Rubric

On this scale, I look at all the Fs the gig offers - if it meets 3 (or more!) of them, I’m taking it. If it meets 2 of them, there is still a value in it, and most likely I will take it on. I don’t take on projects that only have a value of 1 F. 

1. Financial remuneration - will they pay me a reasonable fee? Is cash money crossing my hand in its physical form or via PayPal, electronic bank transfer, or some other legitimate form of payment? 

2. Fun - does this event or project look like it’s going to be fun? Light up those pleasure receptors and make me smile when I’m getting ready to do it and/or doing it?

3. Free food and drink - Hey, no one wants to be at a long event, hungry and thirsty. Can I get a bottled water over here? Stay hydrated people! 

4. Friend - is this being run by a friend and I mean a good friend? Not a vague acquaintance, but a person I hang out with for non-work times as well? I’m into supporting friends and their endeavors. 

5. First time event situation - Maybe this is the 1st ever occurence of the “Dandelions in Nebraska Music Festival” or maybe it’s just the 1st time I have ever been invited to take part in said festival. Or maybe it’s the 1st time you’ve been asked to work as a one-day stage manager assistant and you actually have never had to use all the skills of that skill set before? 

6. For a good cause - Is the purpose of this event to raise funds to build a no-kill animal shelter? Think of the kitties! Legitimate causes and charities are worthy of your time. 

7. multiFarious - OK. This is almost an accessory point and might not be an actual full piece to some, but to get my last F in there, I used a fancy word for miscellaneous…however, what are some plus points this task gets you that otherwise you might not have gotten? Is the event close by and easy to get to? You can sleep in your own bed that night? Will you get to meet and work with a person you hold in high regard and never would have met, or at least not for a couple more years down the line in your growth?

As an example, last year I was invited to serve as a music supervisor for a short indie film. I considered; what Fs will I get? There was no payment, however it was: fun (2), many free coffees and a couple free dinners (3), it was my first chance to do such work and the director’s first film (5), and I could often work from home, use music from artists I know, and I got an IMDB credit to my name as “Music Supervisor.”  (7)

Recently an indie band I work with was offered a last-minute opener spot at a large music festival held in this area. Again, no financial payment, but as a newer band without much audience notice, it was a chance they normally would not have gotten (7) , they got to meet the headliners (also 7), they had access to the craft services tent (3), they had a blast (2), and fortunately they were given a travel stipend to cover their transport to and from the festival. 

 

Now, by no means am I saying that in every situation, if the gig or project offers other things, but no money, should you take it. There are times you have to walk away. When your friend starts a new music mini-fest and you play it for free dinner and a good time, that’s great. You’ve pinged 3 Fs and all is well. When you have been playing your friends festival for 6 years and he is now paying the headliners some quality green and you are still getting “In-N-Out” burgers as payment, the fun / food / friend combo isn’t cutting it anymore. I’d actually go out on a limb and say it’s now only the 1 F of food, because it’s no fun being passed by for payment when you are supporting the event and helping it grow these past few years AND also he isn’t a real friend. Because a true friend wants you to get paid, and if a friend has the ability to pay you, a friend pays. Use your judgement.

Remember, you have to decide how many Fs are being given, and if enough Fs for you to continue. Cheers and on to a successful journey! 

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